#77. Ann Shen: The Job Interview
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What's up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. We took a couple weeks off, but we're back now. Today's episode is hosted by Howie, Eric, and myself. And this was a fun one. This one we recorded back in March, and we had a friend of the show come by and join us in a conversation about gender equality and gender bias in professional workplaces, specifically during the interview process in applying for jobs. We're going to talk about how we can

We share a lot of our own experiences and we get into some debate. We compare some of the hiring practices and cultures of Western companies to Chinese companies. And our guest shares some of her insights. She's a very well-traveled young professional. She has spent a ton of time studying and working all around the world, including Shanghai, New York, Barcelona, Nagoya. She holds an MBA and currently works in finance.

She has been in countless interviews with all sorts of companies and has a great perspective on empowering women in the whole gender discussion. So, without further ado, please give it up for Anne Shen. I love you.

This cover is a little strong. Are you okay with like, it's pretty strong. This is 56%. Try me, I can handle this. Oh. She's tough as nails. Alright, Anne. Anne is tough as nails. If I can't finish this or if I pass out, then you don't have the show.

Can you hear? Yep. Is it perfect? Yep. All right. Let's get perfect. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Come on. Cheers. It's strong. It's excellent. 56.3%. And you can feel it. Oh, yeah. It burns. What's up, Anne?

Great. How are you? Good. How are you? Fantastic. With some whiskey. Whiskey. It feels like the morning to me. I don't know. I don't know why. I'm definitely moving slow. I've been up since like 530. You guys do naps? Are you guys like a naps guy? Every day. You do naps? Every day. Not anymore. I've never really done naps. 10 minute nap.

like an eight to ten minute nap i'm out i dream and i'm up and i feel great yeah i wouldn't be able to just clock out in 10 minutes like i can't like i would be awake just lying down my eyes closed it's like shutting the whole factory down it's hard yeah turning it back on yeah i don't know it works for me i get like i conk out and i because i fall asleep within a minute i literally close my eyes and i'm out i thought you had insomnia not anymore i'm opposite now

What's the opposite? Well, you're like a kleptomaniac. Remember when he used to have, he would get weird panic attacks and then he'd have to go take a cold shower and he couldn't go to sleep and his mind would be racing? Yeah. Now he just passes out a minute. I have thought about this and I've mentioned this a little bit before and I guess I'll talk about it, but...

when I had those panic attacks and stuff like that, I feel like if I'm going to compare how I am now, the biggest difference is I feel like in general, my brain is degenerating. And like my memory, I'm being honest here. No, me too. I'm being honest here. Like my memory capacity has dropped significantly

My speaking capacity has dropped. Just in general, I feel like I'm slow. And as compared to before. And now I conk out. I sleep really well. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I have no idea. Maybe that's just aging. You can't be that drastic. I feel like it's drastic. I know what you're talking about. But I don't know if mine's as drastic as yours. My memory has definitely gotten to shit. But my memory was only shit, though.

Like, I can't remember basic things, like, about, like, my own life. Like your name? No, no, no, obviously. But, like... Hey. But you know what I always found amazing? What if we came on this show one day and, like, totally... I would probably believe you.

- But you know what I almost found amazing was, you know how people, and maybe you guys are the same, but they can be like, "Hey, yeah, when I was eight years old, "and I remember it was a September morning,

And I was in front of my house and a car drove by and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, you know, they can name their specific age. They can name like the month or the time of year. What they were thinking at the time. What they were thinking. I can't do that. Like if you ask me, I have memories, of course. But if I were to try to attach...

how old I was to that memory, I would have no fucking idea. I don't know if I was eight or 15. Like, you know, like I really wouldn't know. Yeah. And I don't know if you guys are the same way. I have the same thing. You do? I don't have that type of memory. But I feel like you come up with your memories pretty well, pretty quickly. But that's just in the context of the stuff that I... Because it's so traumatic for him. That's just the context of the stuff that's in there.

But like, but like, do you remember how exactly how old you were in these memories? No, like, like I'll, I'll share an example that I like that I can relate to what you're saying. So like when you're reading a book,

And people are recounting their life. Like it's super vivid. And I don't know if they're just making it up, but it's the exact same thing. Like in 1975, like and it's old people, like they're fucking like 70 years old or 60, right? Much older. And they're talking about specific references, like whether it's about war or whatever. And they're like, they can write chapters and chapters. I'm like literally that whole 10 years was like a blur.

yeah exactly i wonder if it's because of the environment we've grown up in the difference in the environment what do you mean because even even like when i speak to my parents and stuff like that like they can recall like like there was it was like yesterday yeah it's weird and yet us our generation and maybe even the younger generation i don't know we can't do okay and how's your memory like do you do you recall your childhood well

Well, there's a period of time I keep, like I kept a journal. And then those are, I would say, the clearest memory that I have. If I have to go back to a certain page and read about what I did on a certain day, I think I would remember how, like the emotion that I felt back then. But then after a while, I stopped writing those journals. And then I need to like think about, oh, what did I do on, let's say, my 21st birthday? And then I have no recollection.

I think it's really about habit. Like if you just drop a few key words of the day that describe how you feel, then maybe it's easier to trigger the memory back.

That is definitely one technique that for memory techniques, that what they do is like you have these triggers for certain things you need to remember, right? So one of the techniques is, I don't know if you guys know about this, it's like the house, like you attach- The memory palace. The memory palace, yes, thank you. See, he's talking about his bad memory. He can come up with shit like so quickly. Come up with the memory palace. You come up with the memory palace. But it's all relative. Yeah.

It's all relative. Like I had photographic memory growing up, but now it's like I have like below average memory. So it's like a huge. Which is still much higher than us if it's. Well, no, but it is. It is. It is. It's you have to take specific examples because like for me, like I kind of like I can watch a TV show.

And I will remember the most obscure details of a movie or a show or a scene. And I just need to see one second clip and I can be like, okay, that's that movie. This is that movie. The most obscure things. But I can't remember what I was doing when I was six years old. I just don't know. Trauma.

No, it's not that I have memories, but I can't associate ages with those memories. Like, I just don't know how old I was when I was having those memories. Maybe that's normal. I don't know. Maybe it's not. In my interactions, it's not normal because, you know, I hear all the time people telling stories and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, when I was like four and a half years old. You remember when you were four and a half years old? But can you anchor things to school?

Like school years and stuff, right? Yeah, school years. Because I remember each school year, I know who my teachers were. And you know what grade you were in? Yeah. See, I don't. I can't.

Like school is just school. There's different memories I know like before and after. But I cannot tell you if I was in freshman year or if I was in middle school. Well, I can probably tell you if I was in middle school because the environments change, right? But like let's say high school, I wouldn't be able to tell you, oh, if this was freshman year or senior year. Really? Or sophomore year, you know, or junior year. Like I wouldn't be able to tell you.

But I thought you do so many different things in those different years in high school that will kind of... They all just blend into like one giant thing. My life outside of school does that. But maybe it's because like of all the years of heavy drinking. Well, one I was going to say is one is the heavy drinking. Two is you used to play football and you've had concussions. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And three, you've also said you're not the most social person. So that has also been studied and that...

And that actually affects memory as well. - Yeah? - Social behavior. Yeah. Like, I mean, we're social beings. - So like you guys, in your high school memories, you guys know exactly what grade you guys were? - A little bit. - In all your memories. - So this is connected back to why I was saying that maybe for me, my memory has been getting worse recently, is because I've become such a homebody. I'm not social.

And ever since then, I feel like my brain has been degenerating. And I feel like that might be a reason. There's been studies about it, though. I don't know. For me, this isn't exactly the same thing.

We're kind of opening up a can of worms that we don't need to go down. But just on topic and relevance in terms of brain deterioration and memory loss, I feel it actively. What you're saying, Howie, I feel that actively happening whenever I spend too much time on YouTube. Or that type of social media. Because...

you're not, because the algorithm is working for you, right? And you're not actually working. You're just reacting. And you're just in a completely reactive state, absorbing these clips and absorbing, and you're not actually proactively using like your own brain and energy to do anything. And you get kind of so like automatic in this state that if I'm on YouTube and I like, and after like, let's say I'm on there for an hour, I automatically,

I like physically feel myself getting dumber where I'm like, I gotta stop, I gotta stop, I gotta stop. Because I feel like I'm going into this like comatose state of like thinking where you're just, you're not doing anything. You're just completely just sitting there reacting, you know?

And I don't know, maybe after years of doing that, that also helped speed up the kind of mental deterioration maybe. I don't know. I think there's just a bunch of things, a bunch of reasons all combined. And you don't feel that, Anne?

No, I feel like when I'm on social media, I usually I'm the one who use the search spotlight. So I don't wait for them to push me the content. I actually have things that I'm interested in. I kind of use it as like a Google, but it's on a social media channel that I if I need to look for recipes or certain things that I'm interested in. And then it I don't like that.

And then after I do a couple of searches, of course, it'll push the content that might seem to be my category, but I usually don't follow everything. So occasionally I change things up.

I'm much weaker than you. I take the bait every time down that rabbit hole. I'm like, hmm, what's this? And I click into that. What's that? I click into that. Yeah, and then I have Eric. If I spend too much time on any social media and then he's going to call me out and be like, hey, you've been on your phone for like an hour. Can you do something else? Yeah, that's good. That's good. It's good to have a check. But I could definitely, I know when you go down your rabbit holes because you start sharing links.

The links all have one topic. Yeah. Right, Eric? Yeah. Well, the problem is that whenever you share your links, they come across as a generic, it's like YouTube or whatever, but it's not the title. So then like you have to turn on the VPN. So I don't always click in immediately. Yeah.

Because there's no context. Like literally you're just sending links. Well, no, no. You guys make it. You guys, okay, that's not a fair representation. I actually only send links to you guys when I really feel like, oh, this is actually a really good video. You know, like most of the time I'm not even bothering sending links. And you guys are the only people I send links to, you know? Yeah. Okay, so...

There's a couple of rabbit holes that we can go into, right? So choose your own rabbit hole. One is the senseless violence against Asians in the U.S. and potentially other places in the world. In fact, one guy who was on the UNC basketball team went to school, the same school as Ann did. Another rabbit hole is our show from...

a couple of weeks ago, right after Valentine's Day with Jenny and some of the interesting reactions that we got in terms of like, hey, what do women look for in a man, et cetera, and what people just look for in others, right?

So those are a couple. And then it's also International Women's Month. So there's a lot of global initiatives and projects to help highlight and uncover unsung heroes in the female community and all the challenges that they face and they've overcome. So three rabbit holes. Which one should we choose? An all-fun rabbit holes. Yeah. Anne, who would you like to talk about? Dealer's choice. Yeah. I don't know, honestly. Pick one.

I'll go with the third one, the women's month. All right. Women's month. Okay. Good choice.

So, is it we're in Women's Month right now? Yeah, March. March. All of March is Women's Month. Is this a global thing or just a Chinese? It's global. Oh, it's a global thing. This shows how much I know. Justin. No, because the contrarian in me, I've never believed in like giving months to people. I mean, like women should be celebrated all year round. Like, why are we just, you know, fucking giving them a month? But anyway, so...

Because I just see it as kind of like virtue signaling, right? Like kind of meaningless symbols and gestures. But I don't know. So what do you guys want to talk about? We're like at the end of March, though. How come we didn't talk about this? What do you mean we're at the end of March? It's March 21st. Yeah. It's not March 31st. It's March 21st. It's near the end of March. One more week, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, what does Women's Month mean to you, Anne? Well, I...

I mean, March for me, it's a busy month. I don't really think about what does it mean for me? It's like women's month. I mean, I look at it as, you know, it's the month where both Eric and I, we have our birthday and then I have a lot of stuff lined up. But when I do think about March 8th,

Women's Day. Yeah, Women's Day. And, you know, I do think that, you know, there are struggles that people in, for instance, like 30 plus women, especially in China, that they experience. But somehow I don't, like when we are actually celebrating the San Bajie, like nobody really talks about their struggles. All they do is they shop, they shop like crazy. So, yeah.

I don't know. Which is really unfortunate, right? Right. Because like the commercial industry has used that one day to turn it into profit, profit, profit, you know, and really, really watered down the message. Even though, I mean, coming from my perspective of creating commercials, yeah, I get a lot of briefs that the topic, the subject matter of the videos are all about women, right? And it's all about supporting women. But,

It's all hidden. It's all commercial. It's all commercial. Well, whether it's like Easter or Thanksgiving, these holidays have just, all they've become is just holidays of commercial activity. Well, Kix, if you leave it up to corporate advertisers, obviously that's their agenda. How do we profit off of this? Right? Right.

And it's up to like society and the public as a whole to kind of push back a little bit to kind of push what they want, what message they want shared, shared. You know, we can't, we're not, we can't leave it up to like, you know, the big money, right? So,

This leads me to my question is, you know, we're talking about kind of Women's Month and you're saying that like it kind of gets, the message gets hijacked a little bit by making it kind of like a shopping holiday as most holidays are here anyway. The most capital. But how much like public pushback

Have has that gotten have people been complaining about that? Have people been kind of fighting up against that? Is is there any of that going on? Or are people just kind of like, OK, whatever, you know, and just taking it as it is?

I mean, like what I see is that, I mean, on social platform, especially like Red, a lot of... She Hongshu?

I would say some of those topics are quite good. But then if you look at the comment, you have very mixed comments from very bipolar sides. You have women that would kind of just stand up and say, hey, I really find this relevant. I have been through something similar. And then on the other hand, you can also see some people get very kind of irritated by that topic by saying, hey, you're like, like, you are really just, you

upholding women's right but what about other people you know other than women that also goes through similar situations so it's like whenever people like whenever influencers do try to bring up this topic and you have very mixed reviews and then essentially it's like it's a good topic for discussion but people make it more like it's one way or the other instead of more inclusive way of looking at the struggles overall that's well put yeah

I mean, that's the trick, right? That's the balance. That's the magic numbers. Always trying to make these topics kind of not polarizing and inclusive. But inherently, the nature of these topics sometimes are very polarizing. Right. For better or for worse, right? Right or wrong, it just is. Yeah. Well, yeah, the challenge is like... So...

you have all of these groups that have suffered some type of injustice over time. And there's like a laundry list of them. And so, and you know, I think we can't underestimate the challenges and the suffering and the injustices from these different groups. The most prominent in recent memory is, you know, Black Lives Matters because that's just hundreds of years of

you know, systematic racism. And that's, I mean, obviously that's the big, that's the big, you know, gorilla in the room. Um, and then I think just internationally, um, women, because it's like half the population and all the difficult things. And so there's a, there's a lot of, um,

work being done to, you know, build awareness and, you know, advocacy and all that stuff. Right. But then the tendency is that when you're doing that and it's, you know, you should be, we should be doing that, that you're pushing, you potentially pushing people that don't fall in that segment away because by definition, because you're advocating for a group that's not your group. And so if you're one of those other groups, that's kind of like in the, on that list, right. There's always a way that you can kind of define yourself in that way.

then you're not going to feel part of that. And so how do you, how do you maintain inclusiveness and at the same time highlight things that have been done historically that haven't been fair? That's a great point. And I think exactly what you're saying is what we see out, you know, because black lives matter. That's,

More of a Western kind of movement right in general American in particular. Well in Europe it was well like in England at least Yeah, everywhere that had people brought over everywhere where people from Canada Africa were enslaved and that's basically the entire Western world But but you're right in terms of like the center center stage was America started in is America but

Precisely to the point you just made, Eric, is I think that is what we see happening with white America right now. There's a lot of white Americans that I feel like that aren't racist. There's normal, hardworking people. And all of a sudden, they're in this culture of like,

you know, white people are all racist. You're the fucking reason and you guys are evil and obviously, you know, white people have done some pretty crazy shit on a lot of bases. Without the apologetic white people. Yeah, right? So then, but then there are plenty of white people who are like, hey, I was never that. I'm not racist and now I'm like being demonized.

right so i'm not saying that's right or wrong i'm just saying they're getting alienated so now what's happening is you see white america kind of like fighting back a little bit and pushing back a little bit and we saw that during black lives matter where people were saying wait no it should be all lives matter all lives matter not black lives matter right and

And from my point of view, that's obviously you're missing kind of the point by saying all lives matter. Of course all lives matter, right? But that's not the point here. And that's not the focus. But that is representative of what the point you were making, Eric, in terms of like, look, when you're talking out about these issues and you're focusing on a particular topic or a particular group or community of people,

It's going to alienate the other community people. But, you know, sometimes it's silly, you know, because it's like, you know, they just feel like they're just getting left behind. And it's like by advocating for different groups, I think how we advocate for them is really important. So, for instance, like it's Women's Month.

And so there is a lot of conversations, lots of different companies have, you know, activities around that. And if we advocate in a way that says, Hey, like Howie, you know, you have a sister mother, you have women, all powerful women, strong women, like, um, you know, admirable women all in your life. Right. And if we relate it to you and your role in the context of women, then that feels relevant. But if we just take that group and,

we're trying to you know push over the line a little bit or to make things a little bit more fair and it's only about their individual plight and how they've been victims then yes they have been victims and this is unfair and

But they're pushing people away sometimes because when you're not in that group, you can't relate to that in a way. You can maybe relate to like the things that have been done. But if you could build a stronger connection to your broader audience, you know, I think. So I think particularly for women, I think it's really, you know, think about the women in your life, all the different women in your life and how hard and how many sacrifices. And we're trying to advocate for them. But what I've seen a lot is that we don't do it that way. It's just about me.

Right. Like it's just about these particular women. It's about me, my plight. And it has nothing. There's no connection to the audience. And I think that's probably an opportunity where whenever we're advocating for a group, we need to make it a little bit more personal rather than just about me, me, me, me, me. Because you're just going to you're inherently going to push people away. Right. And I kind of just add on to Eric's point, I think.

One thing that when I was attending the Forte conferences two years ago back then in Atlanta, this came- What's the Forte conference? So it's kind of like a-

it's called Forte Scholarship. So those, this foundation would give scholarship to female who potentially want to, you know, for instance, seeking further education like MBA. So this group provides the fund. And then they also have those annual conferences where they bring all the,

female leaders or potential leaders around the world to gather and talk about how we could have raised more awareness for women when it comes to work or when it comes to a lot of things, how we deal with those struggles. And one point I think I got takeaway from that conference is they mentioned instead of just advocating for women,

and talk about those struggles among women, it will be a lot more helpful if we try to build allies. For instance, I'm a woman, but then if I only share my struggles with my fellow female friends, and then the struggle can never be understood by, for instance, like Eric, if I don't tell him about it. So I think it's very important that women don't just talk about these issues

among themselves, but also kind of try to seek allies because I'm sure there are people out there other than like guys that will be very willing to help when they realize the struggles that these group that deals with. It's the same with like Black Lives Matters. If you look at the parade, it's not just

African American guys were walking down the street, like joining the parades. Also, they have allies of Asian friends, Caucasian friends. So I think seeking allies is very important in any of these groups when it comes to advocating for their rights.

Yeah. No, no, that's a great point. That's a great point. Because if you just make it all about your own community, that almost has the reverse effect, the adverse effect, right? Where you're kind of doing the same thing that you're kind of fighting against. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's subtle, right? It's like, it's all positive intent, but if you really want to make, if you really want to bring everyone in, then you have to relate this to the different audiences and say, Hey, this type of injustice, while it has been much more severe and systematic against certain groups, it's,

you know, being unfair and injustice is something that we should eradicate for all society, not just, you know, for one particular group, although that's where the focus is right now because they've suffered the most. But if we continually just like only think from the perspective of that one group, it will alienate people because by definition, if you're not part of that group, you're like, well, okay, what's in it for me? Kind of like, I mean, that's, it shouldn't be that way, but people are always thinking about what's in it for me. Like, okay, I'm a persecuted minority group as well, but like,

you know, why am I not getting special treatment, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So I think, I think it's subtle, but we have to sort of bring people in and help people understand why society benefits from this. Right. If you have more inclusive and diverse hiring policies, you actually bring better ideas. I mean, I was thinking about this other day. Um, so, um,

My relative of mine was hiring for his company and he had never really thought about like IND, but his partners had worked in other business environments where they studied inclusion and diversity. And they actually did a lot of research behind it to understand its impact on the culture of the company and the performance of the company. And all of the data came back and said, this is not only the moral thing to do, but it's actually, you get much better outcomes. You have a better performing company.

And so my brother kind of then they went through this process and he said that, OK, so your natural processes like just don't incorporate these things because of the systematic biases in society. So like the normal way of hiring, you're just going to eliminate a lot of people because you didn't take the time or you didn't have a good process. Right. It's not like, you know, it's not basically, you know, forcing people.

a process to incorporate certain things. It's just like you have blind spots, right? So by slowing the process down, being more intentional, you actually get a much better candidate pool, but you have to take a little bit more time. And think about it then, historically, right? All like great ideas, whether you're an Edison or an Einstein, you're a Galileo or a Copernicus, right?

The thinking that produced that breakthrough was different thinking. It wasn't the conventional thinking. So if everyone in your company is like a dude of a certain color, then by nature, you're not going to get as many great ideas and it's not going to be as creative because that's how we thought that the sun revolved around the earth.

because that was the prevailing thought. So almost by definition, bringing in more women or more minorities, et cetera, you're going to get a much better outcome because you're going to introduce different viewpoints and that brings innovation. So it's really interesting when you think of it that way. No, for sure. And I feel like what you just, how you just described it, or the process that your brother's been going through. And then I feel like,

That's definitely the answer for me as opposed to affirmative action or stuff like that. I feel like that's another can of worms that we kind of touched upon in the past about do you believe in affirmative action and stuff like that. But I feel like how you just described it is the proper way to support different minority groups that may need a little bit of support.

right? Let's say for, for equal imbalance. And I think like, I mean, it's a, it is a really big can of worms and we try not to, you know, kind of express too many like personal political viewpoints. The way I would look at it is that your current processes in any company generally are going to be, um, are going to be tied to, um,

processes that are going to have inherent bias in them by definition because of how things have worked for so long. And so for me, it's more about reducing and removing the bias rather than favoring any particular group. And when you talk about like, I mean, affirmative action, like what does it actually even mean? Right. I mean, it's just such a like,

How do you define it? I mean, it's a stereotype and people might associate practices that aren't even really part of it, right? I don't even know if there's a standard definition. But if it's I'm favoring a certain race or I'm lowering the standard of hiring or recruitment,

to accommodate this race, no one's going to approve of that. Like no one wants that. It's an idiotic way to write things. Yeah, not even the race itself where it's like, well, I don't want to go into this, be accepted into workplace. And it's like, oh, I was accepted because of lower standards. Then everyone else is going to look at me and be like, oh, like you actually weren't good enough to get in. But you're a charity case. Yeah, you're a charity case, right?

And I don't think anyone really agrees with that. But what we need to do is understand that the current processes in place have been around for a long time. And these have unconscious bias already built in, right? Like, like there are things that we haven't really thought through. We haven't unraveled, we haven't unpacked and we need to go back and make sure that the process itself is fair and that there's no unintentional bias sort of put in. And I think that's really important. And it takes like, you know, like,

Like my brother was saying, it takes a little bit longer. Right. But once you have that mindset, it's easier because like he was saying, okay, like we found some, you know, they were hiring an engineer and it was like, yeah, we've met a bunch of guys and it was easy to get along. We can imagine this guy hanging out with us and having a beer with us. It was so easy.

So that's unconscious bias seeping into the process because you see this guy as someone that you'd like to hang out with. So inevitably when you're talking to them and interviewing them, you're gonna have good feelings about them. But let's say it's like a woman or someone completely different. You might not have that personal connection because you can't imagine playing basketball with her, but maybe she'd be an incredible addition to the team. And so it's not so much about favoring someone

race or a gender but it's about really thinking through at every step is there something I'm doing here where I'm ruling out people unconsciously yeah but I think as long as people are making decisions there's always going to be inherent bias right and

as long as humans are in control of decision making, this is always gonna be the case, right? And today we might start removing these biases, which is always a great mission to reduce the biases, but it's never gonna get down to zero, right? We can't have that expectation, I think, of it ever getting down to zero because as long as humans are emotional beings,

You're going to have bias. Yeah. I'm actually, I want to ask a question to our guest because you did spend some time in Europe. You spent some time in America and you've grown up here in China and worked here professionally. So I'm just, I'm just curious, like being in three different countries,

very vastly different areas. Were there any big differences as a woman, like, you know, working or associating with different people, like any big major differences for you in general? Just curious. I mean, that's a great question. I think the, I wouldn't say being at three different places as a woman has any difference in terms of

you know, the way I live or the way I work. I would say one of the biggest challenges to get through certain perception culturally, like even when I'm in my home country in China, there's a certain perception about my age group, you know, I, you know, before I went when to get my MBA, I was never aware that I could face this kind of challenge when I came back. And plus, there was a year of COVID, you know, which makes things a lot more complicated.

But even in my home country, I faced the challenge initially when I was looking for a job after school that there are certain companies that especially, I wouldn't say it's purely local, but some company, the recruiter will ask you a question like, so how do you plan for your life? In Chinese, they would say, oh, 你的人生规划是怎么样? It's like, excuse me, 不好意思,

what is the intention of you asking this question? What do you try to get out of me? Because for me, the hidden notes was, so when are you going to have kids? Yep, when are you going to have kids? When are you going to get married? Which I don't think is even relevant for this job that I'm looking for. And you shouldn't judge on me, even if I say, yes, I'm going to have kids, right? So even in my home country, there's still this like,

perception culturally, like when I'm in Europe, of course, there are certain ways that they look at certain things that I, you know, as an Asian woman, if I do certain things in a certain way, it will be perceived in a different way than when I'm in my home country. But I would say the general struggle is that people have, they do come from different backgrounds, and they do have different cultural norms. And then to understand the

the impact of certain things that you do that might have on others is very important because I might not be fully aware in America or in Europe. So I have to always ask people, so am I saying something that make people feel like awkward or like uncomfortable? Because in China, I can just joke all I want people like, because I know the reaction from

people around me, it wouldn't- - 'Cause you understand what's culturally acceptable or not. - Right, but then in Europe, it might not be okay if I come up with certain comments. So I just have to be more socially aware and culturally aware of that. - But what you treat, do you feel like you were treated differently?

- In any of these different places, comparing? - I would say the only thing that I feel very, I wouldn't say uncomfortable, but I found it's quite interesting is that everywhere, like when I'm not in China, when I'm in the US or Barcelona, and people always tell me, "Your English is good." I'm like, "Okay, thank you." And just so you know, my peer Chinese students just speak as good as I am.

And if I'm truly good, why would you even comment? You would just like talk to me like normal. It's like the fact that they're pointing certain things out means that they have different expectations. And I just had a self-reflection. So the fact that we even...

Or maybe what I did was we started the show and we were like, oh, like you're a female. Tell us like, tell us what it's like to be a female or you're Asian. Like that in itself shows my own personal bias. Like, why didn't we just be like, hey, what's going on? You've been in any good bars lately? Yeah. Like we had a conversation. I can tell you a little bars. Regardless, you know. But why did we have to narrow the conversation in that way? Why don't we ask her about the whiskey? Yeah.

Yeah, but also this type of topic matters. She would have certain different type of insight than we would. Yeah. So that is why. But it could have been like, what do you want to talk about? Like when a guy comes on the show, we don't always like, okay, tell us what it's like to be a guy. Yeah.

That's true. I mean, I don't want to crucify. It's a double standard. Yeah. I don't want to crucify ourselves because like when we do have people from the F&B industry come on, like, hey, tell us what it's like. And, you know, like that is a starting point. But I think for women, the identity of women is so overwhelmingly powerful in the eyes of men sometimes or even in their own eyes that we start that as a starting point. And maybe that's not the best starting point.

And even for women, they are very sensitive to the surrounding perception. Like for instance, when I earlier mentioned the example of how some recruiter would ask or pry some questions at people who like women amount like above 30 and they would say, oh, you didn't send good racism, right? And then on the other hand, those women know what they're asking.

they know where they should avoid, the rabbit hole that they should avoid going down in order to get the job. So it's almost like... It's a waste of time. Yes. But then it's sad because...

the people who are struggling are fully aware of those traps, but then those traps are still there. - How about, how about just let's, let's, let's twist it around for a second. Let's play devil's advocate for a second. So like, why do you think these companies even ask that? You know, there must be a reason, right? What's, what's, what's the reason?

I mean, if I, I mean, I don't fully agree with what, why they did it. But if I have to put myself in their shoes, apparently, if, if you're looking to hire to fill a position, you would hope that this person get to perform the max at his or her capacity. And then, for instance, for women who are above 30 and married, but with no kids, I think the way they see is there might be a potential that she needs to take

you know, some time off just in case, right? And this time off might be viewed as loss of productivity, or you have to think about the cost of having somebody else to fill that position. So it's a cost to the company in a sense, if I have to think from their shoes. But however, I don't fully agree with why they did it because, you know, being in a different stage of life isn't something you can control.

Guys would have the same issue. When you become a dad, it would be difficult for you to struggle in the first couple years, but people don't, they would not kind of judge. Like for instance, guys, if you're gonna become a new dad, they would not think that you can't perform certain tasks. But then when it comes to women, it's more heightened. People are more sensitive to that. So I think there is a good reason economically from a company's perspective,

But it's kind of like blind spot when they consider guys, when they have to switch into different stages of life. They don't consider that. No, it definitely is a double standard. But I can do you guys one better. We don't have to play doubles advocate. I've asked that question before as a hire. I have.

But I did it even more directly. When I was hiring people and it was a female coming in to interview, I would directly ask them, do you have any plans to get married or pregnant soon? I would ask that question directly. And, you know, yeah, we can debate about it if it's right or wrong. I don't have a strong position of...

the ethics around that per se, because I just don't know and I will defer to you as a woman to tell me. But what you said in terms of trying to understand it from the company's point of view is precisely the case. It was purely economical, right? And I just, as a hire, I didn't wanna hire someone that was just gonna come in and

and then a month later get pregnant and then not be able to work for like three months, sometimes four, and the company has to pay maternity leave. And so what do you get out of it? It's purely from an investment and cost standpoint where, okay, I'm gonna invest in you, I'm gonna hope you serve the company and the mission well, and I'll pay you for that work.

And I just want to know that that work will be received. It's a contract, right? So for me, because I had gotten burned. Okay, burned is a harsh word. But I have had experiences. And by far, this is not all women. This was a small minority, maybe just a couple handful of cases out of all the great women I've hired and that have done incredible things. But I've had hired people that

were looking to get hired just so they can go on maternity leave. - Yeah, the safety. - Yeah, because they get paid for it. Because if they're unemployed and they give birth, they have to pay all that out of pocket. So there are predators out there looking for that opportunity and like, "Hey, get married." Oh, wait, they get hired. And then literally like a couple weeks later, they're pregnant, they get married and they go on the whole thing and right after them, they quit.

So how does the question stop that, though? No, no, the question doesn't stop that. All I'm saying is I want to come here right now and just fully, full disclosure say I have been on the other side. And hearing you say the things you are saying, I mean, I understand that. You know what I mean? And it questions me. I question myself whether, okay, maybe should I have asked that?

And to be completely honest, I don't really have strong feelings right now or a clear kind of where I should land on that. But to your point of what you were saying in terms of, you know, there's no way, you know, the blind spot, right? Like there's no way we can control what you're going to do later on in life. And I just want to say, like, I can't speak for everybody, but for myself was that,

If because there were plenty of employees, female employees that had worked and they did a great job and eventually they did get married and have kids. And I was more than happy for them to do so. And I gave them all the support and their job was happily waiting for them whenever they were ready to come back.

But that's after they had proven themselves in terms of a valuable asset to the company and that they were committed to the company and that they had good intentions. And there was a mutual trust there. And I was like, okay, yeah, fine. Of course you're going to. I'm like, who am I? Obviously, I'm not going to do anything to stop you. But my whole motive of asking that question was just trying to make sure they weren't just jumping on here

you know, just to get that maternity stuff, right? Right, right, I understand. And that they weren't just going to come in here the next week they were going to go on maternity leave, you know? Yeah. That was my personal intention. I can't speak for everybody. Well, I think, I mean, a few points, right, Justin? Like, one is that my, you know, just from my peripheral understanding of

like some of the businesses that you ran is that, you know, I think that probably most of the people that work for you would, would say that, you know, you cared about, you know, your employees, you wanted them to grow and develop. And like you had, um,

like positive intentions and the whole thing, right? So I think without directly working with you, I'm sure how we could probably vouch for that, right? But the people that were like, that were interviewing wouldn't have known that when I asked the question. I'm just saying in general, I just wanted to kind of preface that, right? To say that my understanding, just knowing you as a person is like good intentions, but these can be very tricky conversations and people can take things out of context, right? But I guess...

you know, my, my question or point would be like, number one is that like, how do you, number one is that if you ask the question, like if, if someone has that intention of doing that, they're not going to tell you. Right. So like, like, so it's kind of to Howie's points, like, like if everyone knows how to navigate that question, number one is it's really hard to understand human nature in that sense. And so by asking that specific point,

you're uncovering what is really an outlier because most people are not like that. And it's almost, and it could be construed as disrespectful because if most women are not like that, and then you ask the question, and it's kind of a, maybe not a very effective question, right? The second piece is that that type of behavior of not being committed, that's not a behavior that's unique to women, right? It's not a behavior unique to any race. You have women

people that are committed and you have people that are not committed. And I think it's fair to hire people that you feel like are going to be committed. But once you start putting specific lenses on it, that's only specific to a certain gender or a race, then I think people start having issues with that because that's when it's a very, very slippery slope. So it's almost like, you know, you're hiring someone who's like, look, I don't care. You know, like,

if you do this, this, this, and this, this is what we support because we want to get the best people, but we do only hire committed people. And I need to let you know that, but it's not specific to women. I mean, there's, you know what I'm saying? Men could like do the same thing. No, but giving birth is specific to women. Right. And that's what we're talking about. But do we have the same conversation with men? We do in different ways. Right. So maybe it's less, obviously it's not about giving birth, but, um,

I mean, you ask people, like, do you have a criminal record, right? And I'm not drawing comparisons to that in giving birth by any means, but that's also a very personal thing that doesn't apply to most people and it's only the outliers that might have a criminal record.

But you ask that question as kind of a common practice thing anyway, just to filter so that you don't get that one outlier because you hire a lot of people. But those are definitely two different, you can't, I know you don't mean to equate them, but you just can't, right? But I'm saying the filtering of, and it's comparable in the sense that we're talking about the outliers, right? And most people are not going to come in with a criminal record. Right, but having a baby and a child is not a bad thing.

No, it's not a bad thing. You know, like, whereas being a criminal is by definition a bad thing. Yeah. But we're talking about, we're talking about like economics of investment. Well, the slippery slope. And when you're talking about that, it's not so much, it doesn't hinge so much upon the ethics of it anymore. I mean,

Obviously, ethics still are involved, but I'm saying when you're weighing out investment, like if you were to invest in a company or a stock and you want to know, okay, well, if I invest in this company and I put in capital, I want to know that you're not just going to

shut it down for three months, you know? And so like you wanna know this kind of stuff. It's due diligence, really. - I think like the economic piece we all understand. I think like number one is that it's so exceedingly rare that to base your hiring practice based on that might not be effective. The second is asking the question might not give you the answer that you're really looking for. And then third, most importantly, is that if that becomes your hiring policy,

I would then question that you would be competitive in the market these days. - But you're making assumptions. Because girls have told me that they were gonna get married and have a baby, and I've ended up hiring them. So it's not a policy in terms of this is a determining factor if I'm gonna hire you, but it is gonna be part of my questioning and part of my consideration. I think that's where this debate is going.

What you're assuming, and I think what most people are assuming is, oh, if you answer, oh, yes, you know, I do have plans within the next couple years of possibly getting married and having a baby that I'm not going to hire you. Now, again, I can't speak for everybody. For myself, there were people that said, yes, you know, I just got engaged. I don't have plans right now to get married or to have a baby. But, I mean, it's possible in the next two years I will, you know, I would like to.

And we went on to other things and talking about other things during the interview. If this person impresses me and I think they're a great candidate for the job, I have made the decision to hire them. So it has not prohibited me from hiring people, but it was part of my consideration. Fair enough. Also, another useful thing that it does for me is that

you know, even with the outliers, like if I ask you and yes, the person can lie, right? And if they really are trying to game the system, they probably would lie about it anyway, right? But what that tells me is they may slip through and maybe let's say I hired this person and then a month later or a couple of weeks later, they got, you know, they decided to give birth and it was clear that they were kind of gaming the system that they lied to me. Well,

Because I asked that question during the interview, now I can be very sure and very clear about where this person stands and lies. Instead of me having to guess, well, maybe it was just a fluke accident and they got knocked up and I can't blame them for that. And I'm not going to try to punish them for that. But if you just straight up lied to me during an interview, because I would only know because if I asked that question, had that face-to-face eye contact conversation with you,

And now I have a better gauge as to, okay, well, this person could just be a liar, right? And so that would help me make my decisions going forward with this person. - Interesting. - Yeah, I see your logic. One comment and then we can let Anne, I'm sure she has some thoughts, but I guess the question would be in the current environment, would asking, like knowing that half your, let's say half your candidates are female,

would that in the long run serve your purpose of being competitive as an employer? Only if it affected my, like if it was a pivotal part of me hiring and not hiring this person. But as part of the slew of questions I would answer, I don't think it would matter. No, what I'm saying is that

I don't think that this is, my feeling is that this is probably a practice that more and more companies are moving away from. And so if you're the one company that's asking these type of questions, that might actually figure into the candidate's decision of whether they want to work for you. I mean, I personally, if I ran a company, I wouldn't ask that question because the net net, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't be so sort of like, you know, so,

or oriented with that specific outlier case because, yeah, I get it. Like, you know, like this is sort of like,

you had a couple of maybe bad incidents right which then i'll shape your perception of the thing but if i'm just looking at the overall economics of it i wouldn't do it right because i probably lose more good candidates or just i don't think that i would number one want to be known for a company that kind of wasn't progressive in that sense and then number two for maybe the one person in 10 years that i prevented from getting in the system i might be preventing a you know

10 of them really good ones from getting in the system. But I get your logic because I think what you're trying to articulate is that

You're trying to do it in as fair and transparent ways as possible. You don't feel any negativity or bias towards different genders, but a person's commitment is something that you're going to test in your interview process. And then for women, it happened to be that this is something sort of unique, but it could be like if, if more and more fathers are going through, uh, are getting paternity leave, um,

And it's like maybe you have guys that go and-- - I would ask the same question to the guys. - Have like 10 babies. They're like, I'm gonna just keep having babies so I can have my leave. - Well, I think it also depends on, a big part of it also is the state and situation of your company, right?

If your company is a big company, you got a lot of money and maybe you can be more relaxed. But if you're a startup where every single dollar is do or die, right? And you're on such a tight budget because you're a fucking startup, right? And you're hanging on by the skin of your teeth where every fucking dollar matters. Every cent matters. Well, as a product of that, these...

I mean, these questions are going to matter to you, right? Like when you're purely thinking economically and financially, right, about your company and the investment, I mean, these are going to hit you in different ways. It's going to be a more severe impact on you

when you're in that situation versus when you're not. That's all I'm saying. Right. And kind of going back to what you said earlier, I think definitely I understand if it's a startup, you really put your skin in the company and then you're fighting very hard to protect your company. And the time matters too, because like you have a short time, like you have to make it now or never, right? Right, right. Every day you can shut down the company. Right. And if I were to think from like, you know,

your perspective because I know you as a friend, I know you aren't the people who would judge a candidacy based on the gender because I know you. So when you kind of like said the question that you would ask, I wouldn't doubt you for saying that, right? But if I were to think from the reputation perspective,

point of view for your company just to protect your company because what's more important than economic benefits is the reputation because you're a startup. People really talk, you know, like crazy on social media. Even if we're quite mature or medium-sized,

some scandal or some people's just random talk about certain things can really cause... - Or can ruin you, right? - Exactly. So if I think about, you know, how can I protect your company? If I were to think I'm one of those candidates who is well-intended and then I got this question and somehow it was really because of my own candidacy doesn't really match

the qualification that you're looking for. But if this question come up in the interview, and then when you were informing the candidate about, oh, sorry, based on your candidates, based on your qualification, I don't think it's a perfect match. And we have somebody else. And if I were that candidate, and I searched my memory about what happened during that interview, and then this question come up, and then, you know, you could, you could convince me because I know you,

But how are you going to convince somebody who doesn't really know who Justin is really like as a person? And then they might actually take this, even if they're well-intended, might actually escalate into a totally unnecessary chaos that they would spin it around and be like, hey, you know what? Don't even bother to talk to Justin because he's a boss of a startup that doesn't even respect women. He's fucking sexist. Right? And then this could totally ruin you in a sense that, you know, I understand why you

protect this question in your interview but at the same time I would also be concerned as a friend that if this you know if some bad intended people might turn this around and try to really mess with you is it no you're right you're absolutely right but could they even turn it around in a society where it's pretty normal and everybody knows that this type of questioning happens yeah I mean I don't think people ask these questions anymore how I

- I wouldn't be surprised. - Honestly though, okay, for the-- - The listeners out there? - Okay, in the spirit of like-- - Can we get some comments? - Yeah, in the spirit of being completely honest though, okay, in the spirit of being completely honest, I don't think I would ask that question if I was a startup in America. If I was in America at the time, you know, creating a startup, working in a company, hiring people, I probably wouldn't have asked that same question.

And the fact that I was here in China, culturally, for some reason, I don't know why, I could be completely wrong. But for some reason, I just felt, hey, it's kind of okay here. And I don't know why I felt that way. I just did. And that kind of gave me a little more like, okay, you know what, I know myself, I know my intentions, but I want to include this question in there because I just want this to be part of my questioning and I want to know what I'm getting.

that's that's all it was but you know maybe this speaks culturally or i could be dead wrong and culturally here it's like so taboo but i don't know well i mean you mentioned earlier because like you're you're probably you have more experience on this one than we do right because we don't get asked this question obviously um but you mentioned earlier that you made the distinction of

that could be considered global, right? And when I say global, I don't mean like a Western company. I just mean a company that operates globally. So there are many global companies that are Chinese companies and there are many global companies that are Western companies. And then you also mentioned like some local companies, like companies that just operate here perhaps in China, right? So based on your understanding and like your interviewing experience,

your interview experiences and your friends, do you feel like there are different practices for the companies just operate locally and then global companies? And then does that have an influence on your decision making of what type of company you want to work for? I mean, it's hard to say exactly.

if there's any clear difference between the two when it comes to the interviewing process. I think interview... Between the two, what two are we talking about? The global company. And the local companies. Yeah, and the purely Chinese-based businesses. I wouldn't say there's clear differences, but...

I think like we have to understand this from a broader perspective. For instance, in Germany, asking like gender related question, for instance, like when you're going to have kids is illegal.

Period. So there are, it's a different set of regulation and cultural sensitivity across the globe. In America, I don't think anybody can ask that question either. No, you can't. Is it illegal in America or just taboo? I don't think it's a... I think it's just taboo. I don't think it's illegal. Yeah, but like in some European countries... Just like you can't even ask the age. Yeah.

You can't even ask how old you are. I don't know what kind of business Justin's running here in China. He's like, old school. I mean, you can make the argument that in America, they're like walking on eggshells over there and they're going too far one way. You know what I mean? I mean, where you can't even ask the age of somebody. Like, come on. I mean, anything could be ageist, right? Like, if you want to open up that can of worms, you can say, well, you shouldn't be able to ask anybody where they graduated from school.

where they got their diploma from. Because there are a lot of social and economic, you know, and deep biases between like minorities and especially like, you know, people of black and brown color in America that just didn't get, you know, opportunities to go to good schools in the first place because of history, right? So it's like, why can't you? It should get to the point where all interviews should be not face-to-face with a robot translated voice so you can't tell a gender, you can't see who they are. There's like no questions you can ask. Yeah, like...

Everything is unknown. But you can still have a conversation and get to know them. You can see the resume, but you can't know who they are, what their gender are. That's actually good. That's actually good. That's actually a pretty good idea. Right? Yeah, yeah. Because that would make it fair. Unless you're in a marketing or some sort of role where you kind of need to have good looks because you're representing them. No, you're biased. Stop it. That's horrible. That's horrible, Justin. Yeah. It's common practice. Yeah.

So anyway, going back to you with the whole local and international global businesses, you said there's not a big difference that you've...

Yeah, I don't think there's a big difference. I mean, first of all, if I'm in China, I'm competing with, you know, a talent pool that is maybe most of them are Chinese that are very talented and capable if they get selected for the interview. When I'm in, let's say when I'm in Europe, I'm

if my qualification match, maybe I'll get pulled into an interview, but then I'm competing with maybe local talents who can speak multiple European languages and then knows the context of the culture and understand how businesses run. So it's,

I would say in a sense, in an international market, of course, it's going to be more competitive for me if I'm not from there locally. And then when I would be an extra cost when it comes to visa sponsorship, and then I might not fully understand all the details about their culture context. So of course, it will be more competitive for me to get

a job offer in a different country, it's definitely, I would say a lot more challenging, but even locally, I wouldn't say it's as easy when I do understand the cultural nuances and then I do have some knowledge about the market. It's still this, I would say it's still competitive,

But it's not. But then I'm competing sometimes on a in a base where I do get not very fair question in the interview. That's that's the moment when I decide, hey, do I want to continue this conversation? For instance, if somebody is very outspoken and ask me about. So I remember one recruiter mentioned that, oh, we have a team full of guys. How are you going to work with them?

Is this a local company or a global company? It's a local company. Okay, I think that's what we're trying to get at. We're trying to understand, are there these different type of questions or different type of expectations that come out of these two? Is this like a cultural thing? Yeah, is it a cultural thing? We're just curious. I mean, for me, there's no difference working with a team of girls or a team of guys. Sure, sure. Maybe we go to different bathrooms, but... But in terms of getting like that shock question, comparatively, have you found differences?

I would say maybe a little bit more in the local, like more Chinese based companies. I mean, because the recruiters are more jie di qi and then sometimes they think it's a standard question, but, you know, might not be viewed as standard, you know.

by certain people what other questions okay so we we talked about the pregnancy one uh you you just mentioned um it was a team full of guys and they asked you if you're okay working with a bunch of guys um are there other ones that related to your gender that you felt were kind of on the fence a little yeah and i remember one time there was somebody that that person wasn't a recruiter but then they say oh we are a very busy company you know we require you to work longer hours

and you are a girl. - Oh, they straight up said that? - Yes. - What? - Would you be okay? - That's the most egregious one I've heard. - They would say it, not in such a way, but they would sound like they're like an older brother of you. They would try to say something like, "Oh, you know,

you're a girl and then you're from Shanghai, your parents probably like they wouldn't let you do those long hours. Would you be okay doing that? It was like very condescending. Yeah, it's like, so you're saying I can't work hard or you have a problem with certain- They're trying to be empathetic, but they come across as being condescending. Yeah, extremely condescending. I don't even think they're being empathetic. I think they said it in a way just to see-

just to toss it out. They don't feel any sympathy. If they do, this wouldn't be a question that they would even throw that out. If they're truly accommodating, and then they should accommodate the way you work instead of giving you that question then. If you don't think that I can work long hours, that's the time when you actually ask me, would you be okay dealing with that? Well, and the question is, as a general hiring, effective hiring, is it more effective to,

what's the most effective way to hire good people? Because it's not just a specific gender or whatever it is, right? It's that hiring the wrong person costs your company a lot of money. - Five times of the cost. - And everyone knows that finding the right candidate and being able to bring in the best talent that fits your culture

is a key competitive strategy. And so that's really the biggest question, right? So it was like, is asking about pregnancy or is asking, you know, these types of questions, um,

It almost feels narrow in the sense that, okay, maybe you win a little bit on this one little front, but if you had like a holistic interviewing process that was either competency-based or it was scenario, like, I mean, Adam Grant talks about this, right? Where we've gone beyond skills-based interviews because you can fake that. They actually put you in the freaking environment where you do the fucking work and they see your teamwork, right? And so, I mean, they're getting more and more precise in this type of stuff. So it's not so much that,

you know, one question is good or bad. It's just that, is that, is that a holistic strategy? Are we holding onto a single question for a very narrow reason? Or do we actually have a more scientific, holistic approach?

and effective way. You know, like I think if you were to look at the companies that still ask very gender-based questions and compare their performance against companies that are, have really strong, inclusive and hiring type practices, you, it might actually make more sense business-wise. And that's what my,

you know, my brother's company, they've made the decision that, and the funny thing is like, they tried to hire this female who was the best candidate and she turned him down, you know? Um, I shouldn't say too much just cause this is probably private to his business, but, um, that,

That's why I said relative. Did I slip and say brother or did you slip and say brother? How he slipped and said brother. Yeah, exactly. Because you said relative. I noticed this in real time as it was going on. But I was like, okay, maybe I just missed something. Yeah, I thought I missed something. You said relative. You were very careful to say relative. Yeah.

When Howie was responding to you, he was like, your brother is company. I'm like, okay, now I know what's his mother. Well, I've got 12 brothers, so it doesn't, you know, you pick one. I didn't even realize I said that. I know. No, but Eric, you bring up a great point. That's the mental degeneration. We can clearly see that Justin and I are less mentally degenerating. But see, I think this is where the culture thing comes into play is,

And just for the record, I 100% agree with you, Eric, in terms of adopting a more holistic approach to hiring practices, for sure. And I think in the long run, that's going to pay off for any company. If they're smart, they're going to do that. But I think the question is, is, you know...

you know, culturally, maybe these local companies are asking these questions because they think these questions are going to lead them to the right person. So like the question is like, what is the definition of the right person to different people? Right. So like for for a company here, maybe their idea of the right person, whether we agree with it or not,

is what they think fits that model and fits that bill of in line with the questions they ask, right? And to them, that is the model right person. Meanwhile, we're sitting here being like, that's so narrow-minded, right? But it goes back to like, what is the definition of the right person? And it gets messy because that is not a definition I think is a universal definition. I think that just really depends on

the personnel the people the company the culture and that company right and to them what they think their right person is right or wrong you know and that's where it gets really murky right like because

Who are we? Just like they can't tell us who is the right person for us, we can't tell them who the right person is for them either. Right, but I don't want to make this sound very negative. It feels like this is those kind of gender-based or biased questions. They do come up. I don't think not every woman might get bothered by it, but some people do feel very...

Not sensitive. I was thinking from this point of view, usually, if I view this whole thing, I think there is always a two way choices. The company is choosing what's the best for them, whether they are gender biased or not.

And then for the candidates, they're also choosing which company would suit them the best. So maybe I just happen to have a very bad luck that I run into a couple companies that doesn't really share this value. But I would say there are so many great companies out there who would actually be very open minded about, you know,

this kind of issues. They might not see this as a problem, right? So it's not that women has to deal with this struggle because they can choose not to. There are companies that are willing to take

them, and they will highly appreciate those kind of talents. And then, you know, in a long term perspective for the company, yes, taking a year, it is a it is an economical cost. But then if this person is going to stay with the company for, let's say, 10 years, how much impact would that be with the return on the margin for the amount of creativity and the qualification that person can bring to the company, that's going to totally

be paramount compared to... It would negate the time of writing. So if I see it that way, actually, there are plenty of choices. Like, I don't think women in China has to deal with this kind of bias at work. If they choose, if they decide that this isn't something that's going to help their professional growth, then look somewhere else. I'm sure there are bajillion companies that are looking to hire talented people regardless of

Where they come from, what's their gender. And thank you for bringing that up because you do make a good point. It absolutely is a two-way street, right? Because from the employee's standpoint or from the interviewee's standpoint,

point of view is they're looking for a home. They're looking for a company they can thrive in and that can provide for them and they can learn and grow as a person as well. And they want to know that you're stable and that you're good and what's your culture like, right? So thank you for saying that because I'm actually going to toot my own horn first. One second, just one real quick second. Bear with me. After the first two months of doing interviews,

From then on, every single interview I ever did was, I told them right off the beginning of the bat, I said, "This is much of an interview for me as it is for you." Meaning, I'm looking for you to find things that you want in me. It's not just about me wanting you, but I wanna know that you wanna be here as well, right? And if you don't wanna be here,

I'm not going to like bend over backwards to try to get you here because at the end of the day, that's not very cost effective for me because you're probably just going to end up leaving later on anyway, right? So I made it very clear with every person I've ever interviewed in the beginning was, look, while we're doing this, you're interviewing me as well, okay? Based on what I'm asking you, based on the conversation we're about to have.

It's a two-way street. So that was always like... And I even straight up... And I remember how we used to have conversations about this because we used to work together was that we would ask the people we were interviewing. It was like, why do we even want to work here? And it wasn't like a question of like...

oh, tell me like all the, like, you know, like just tell me all the things you, you, you like, you've studied or researched about our company. We were genuinely asking, like, cause we were a startup, right? We were like, why do you really want to work here? Some people were overqualified and we're like, do you really want to work here? Like, look, like, you know, and we tried to,

we tried to show all the ugly sides of working here just to make sure you really wanted to work here. And I'm only saying all this is one is to toot my own horn, but two is also because you brought up the idea of the two-way street and it absolutely is a two-way street. And I think that has some inherent built in mechanism of also making that person feel comfortable. And there's a certain mutual transparency and trust I feel you build right from the get-go in that first awkward conversation when you're interviewing somebody

is that transparency and trust that you build in of knowing like, look, I'm just as much on trial as you are, quote unquote. And let's work this out. And if we can find some sort of chemistry here, and there's a mutual liking of an interest here, then we got something. But if it's just a one-way street, regardless of the direction it goes, then it's probably not a long-term thing. That's all.

Definitely easier if you're a bigger corporation than you have. Yeah, but we did that when we were just small beans. Yeah, but I think out of 199, which is because I'm looking for a job. Yeah, a lot of it at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's a complex, it's not a black and white kind of thing. Because if you're a smaller company and, you know, I've got to think, okay, let's say that you're, you know, a smaller company, right? And you're really just counting every bean. And you can't really afford to kind of make a mistake. And let's say that one time you brought in something, someone, right? Male, female, whatever. And you brought in the wrong person.

And so you got kind of burned and you remember that, right? And maybe that just happened once. And maybe it's not reflective of like what the overall odds are, but you got that one bad person. That's human nature, right? You're going to be shaped by that experience. And then that might, that Laoban,

might be asking certain questions to prevent that outlier for the rest of his career. Yeah. You're going to build in some sort of mechanism to prevent that from happening. Right or wrong. Because maybe that's just an outlier. Maybe that is just that, that like something really strange, like this person did X, Y, Z, it never happens. So now I have a question about X, Y, Z. And, you know, then you get into this sort of loss aversion. And so all of your focus is on the downside, right?

And then you ask yourself, well, would, you know, you had this great interview, like it's much about you liking my company is me liking you. And you ask one question, but that one question has a disproportionate impact on the tone of the overall experience, right? You ask one question that's very sensitive that companies these days don't ask anymore. And so it's much about the emotional content, right?

than any intention that you have. And so that one question where you're so loss averse because of one outlier that happened once that you actually turn away or turn off tons and tons of candidates because it disproportionately, that one little thing, you're trying to fish for a little thing.

And I think the other piece is that, of course, if you're a small company, you're looking for, you know, short-term, temporary workers. Like, all these things are going to factor, right? Are you looking for people that are going to be in your company 20 years? Is your company big enough where you can give someone a 20-year career? Or is your company so small that, like, you don't know you're going to be around in two years, right? That also factors into it. Exactly. Like, you can't even... As a startup, you can't afford to think, like, 20 years from now, this person might pay off. It's like about, like, right now. It's about tomorrow. But you would...

You sort of aspire, I suppose, right? Because I had never started my own company. So it's like everything I say is theoretical. I've never been through that stress. But, you know, if you focused all your energies on finding the best possible candidates rather than the loss aversion piece, maybe you have different results, you know, so.

Howie, you need to drink more. You don't even deserve it now. You don't even deserve it now. For the listeners who don't know, Howie just turned, I tried to refill his cup of whiskey. He turned me away. Like a 300 US dollar bottle of high-end whiskey. And now he wants me to refill his cup. And I'm not even going to refill it. I'm going to refill his cup. He's so disinterested.

you don't get it you missed your opportunity how dare you turn me away from you know this whole thing with him being able to fall asleep in one minute i feel like he's about to fall asleep on this show i've seen his eyelids are so heavy his eyelids are heavy right now yeah so but i i do feel like um i mean i would say that like i've learned something from this conversation and and like just kind of going through the conversation the loss aversion that

you know, that people who may not have that large of a margin of error, you can never underestimate that because that really figures into the psychology. And at the same time, then how do you step out of that a little bit and then focus on like more upside conversations? Because, you know, if you're always focused on loss aversion, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. No, that's true. That's true. That's true.

i think i don't know like i really appreciate and you you kind of speaking from your side because if it was just us three dudes just talking about this i don't think i would have really learned anything but like you're sharing your side yeah dude yeah i've got howie here um no but it definitely does make me think more about it and um and just just to be clear i was never fully comfortable with asking that question in the beginning anyway but i did right and

I don't know. Like it's, it's, uh, what was your female male gender ratio in your company? I'm just curious. Like it was like, it was like 90% female. Yeah. Mostly. So there you go. Right. The proof is in the pudding. It was like 70, 30, I would say. Yeah. It was, it was a lot more females than males for sure. Um,

So, you know, it wasn't, again, it wasn't an end all and be all question of this is like really going to impact my decision making. But it was a piece of information that I wanted to know. Right or wrong, it was something I wanted to know. And...

Yeah. I mean, look, I think the conversation today is about, you know, kind of rethinking kind of what you were saying back in the beginning, Eric, is like rethinking a lot about these like hidden biases that might be there and being aware of them and trying to remove them. Right. Remove those blockades, remove those hurdles. Right. That don't need to be there. And when it comes to kind of gender equality, things like this.

I think as a dude, for sure, there are definitely going to be some hidden biases there. Even though I think us three are pretty fucking in the clear with that kind of shit. I mean, we're pretty good. But as good as we think we are, I'm sure there's always room for improvement. There's always things we can do. And eventually this opens up a can of worms onto other things, you know, besides gender equality, but, you know, like gender orientation equality or, you know, I think another thing we can save for another episode

is, you know, especially in relation to China is about like, you know, sexuality, right? And I think that's the last kind of, well, maybe not last, but in my, off the top of my head, that's the one other thing that I think is kind of in terms of awareness and a movement is probably lacking in China is about sexuality. You just don't see that represented anywhere. You know, you look on any kind of

TV shows, like you cannot turn on an American TV show today without having homosexual or gay characters in the storyline and a whole thing about them. In China, you cannot turn on a TV show without not seeing one. You know what I mean? Like it's so completely reversed.

And that's something probably that really needs to get talked about, but it doesn't really get talked about. It's still kind of taboo here. Well, there are. There are. There are TV shows. There are? Yeah. And transvestites. Like which ones? You know what I'm talking about, right? In China, there's like... I don't remember who the person is, but I know there was like a TV show with like a transvestite. Jingxing? Jingxing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean... Is that like one? Yeah, but she's so... She's so extraordinary. I mean...

I like to unpack a little bit of what you said, Justin, I would say like, number one, if we were to do a self appraisal of like where we are and how open-minded we are, we first need to recognize that every closed minded person says they're open-minded. So I'm not ready to say that I'm open-minded, right? I'm ready to say that, um, that I have to fight myself to not be closed-minded. I will never be open-minded because I'm, um,

I mean, just by the nature of how human beings are wired, we're wired for certainty and you have to intentionally put yourself in conversations that

and situations and discussions to force yourself to edge away from being closed-minded. The best I can ever hope for is to be walking in the opposite direction of closed-minded towards open-minded. I will never be open-minded because once I say I'm open-minded... It's not an actual destination. Right, and once you say you're open-minded, it means you're closed-minded because all the thoughts that lead to the certainty of being open-minded... That's a good point. And I think second is that we've got to...

be able to step back and zoom out to the point where we're seeing the big picture and where that big picture is. It's hard. Cause we always tend to zoom in cause we've got to focus. Like I've got to put one foot in front of the other so that I can safely navigate home. I'm always thinking about the next step, but I also have to be able to kind of zoom out. And so what, what is the value, the value of what, what are our core values, you know? And it's, it's about removing those biases and,

seeing where we're not being fair to people, helping other people regardless of their gender or race or whatever, and then building that into our daily operating systems and being... I think just being kind. Because a lot of these things then focus on this victim and that victim. But if everyone were just actually kind and made a conscious effort to be kind, we could probably reduce racism by like 80% just off the bat. So... I mean, this is...

You know, this is definitely a topic, you know, we can talk about this later, but it's so relevant right now and what's happening in America. And I mean, we see it playing out. Yeah. It's, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to get into it now, but I have a lot to say on that. That's for another episode, I feel like. But I feel we should do that episode soon because it's so relevant. And we called this out.

like well at least i called this out not to do my own a year ago when the second episode we had charles on right and we were talking about this we were and this was like in the beginning of kind of covet right and we were talking about like oh this is gonna lead to a lot of anti-asian sentiment like we saw this clearly coming it was clear as day at least for me it was

of how this is gonna play out and boom today you look in america it's exactly what's happening just as predicted right on schedule right and so it's like it's no it's not surprising but it's very disappointing yeah definitely let's let's talk about that yeah next time all right guys uh ann thank you for sharing you're very welcome

You have a lot of good things to say. I feel you should speak more. I feel like any guest, guy or girl, that can get in a word against the Ha Ha Monsters, it's like, I mean, that's really special. It's like we come on the show, hey, we're open-minded. We want to get to know you. And then all of a sudden, it's as if the guest doesn't exist. We crush you. Like every show is actually just the three of us and then like some other person. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, whatever. Whatever that was. Okay, guys. Toot your own horn, baby. All right, guys. Peace. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. All right, guys. I was like, so disengaged. Yeah. Get your six hours of sleep. You can't even respond. He's so tired. All right, guys. We love you. I'm Justin. And I'm Howard. I'm not a horn tutor, Eric.

And that was Anne. Anne. This is Anne. Okay, guys. Be good. Be well. We love you. Bye. Bye. Bye.